William H. Frist: “there is one issue I talked about initially Monday and want to bring forth once again. Nothing is more important than…”

“there is one issue I talked about initially Monday and want to bring forth once again. Nothing is more important than the safety of the American people, and we have a lot of work to do in a particular area. Yesterday we learned that samples of the deadly H2N2 flu virus were accidentally shipped to 5,000 laboratories all over the world. Thankfully, nearly all of the samples have been destroyed. The H2N2 virus is lethal. It is fatal. Back in 1957, it killed over 70,000 people just here in the United States and as many as 1 million to 4 million people around the world. This latest news underscores, once again, just how vulnerable we are as an American people, as a world people, because viruses know no borders, they know no geography. There are no barriers. On Monday, 3 days ago, I spoke of the need to bolster State preparedness and Federal preparedness in this arena. I mentioned that exotic and deadly viruses, such as the Marburg virus that at this very moment is racking all of northern Angola--the Marburg virus being a virus which is an Ebola-like virus, a hemorrhagic-fever-type virus-- those viruses that are racking that country which we do not understand, for which we have no cure, for which we have no vaccine, are literally just a plane ride away from this room or from whoever is listening to me now through the media around the country. It is just a plane ride away. Avian flu has already killed 50 people. Some say, 50 people, that is not thousands of people.…”